The opening night of this year’s Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow will feature a full orchestration of Martyn Bennett's last album, GRIT, by cross-genre classical violinist Greg Lawson... MORE INFO...

A STAGE show inspired by the life and legacy of a groundbreaking musician whose life was cut short by cancer at the age of just 33 has been named event of the year at the annual... MORE INFO...

Combining celebration with commemoration, Celtic Connections 2015 opens with the live world première of Martyn Bennett’s final masterpiece Grit, originally released in 2003, and... MORE INFO...

The Martyn Bennett Prize was open to all Scottish-based musicians to create a new five – ten minute long composition that showed its roots in traditional music. The winner received £2000 and... MORE INFO...

GRIT - Gold Edition

The Real World Gold reissue of Matyn Bennett's album GRIT features two bonus tracks. The first is a remix of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sky Blue’, which Martyn had worked on at Peter’s request... MORE INFO...

GRIT - The Martyn Bennett Story

An ambitious new cross-form, Scots-Canadian site specific production based on the inspiring life and music of one of Scotland's most innovative, pioneering and influential musicians; the tragically late ... MORE INFO...

Blackbird: A film by Jamie Chambers

For me, Martyn served as a gateway to a whole side of Scottish culture that , up to that point, I didn't know existed. As a young Scot I had long been looking for something amidst the tartantry and... MORE INFO...

Gary West: Voicing Scotland

Dr Gary West has kindly allowed us to post an excerpt about Martyn from his superb book 'Voicing Scotland'. We think this is one of the finest accounts of Martyn... MORE INFO...

Hall of Fame tribute for talented piper Martyn Bennett

A PIONEERING piper whose life was cut short at the age of just 33 is to be inuagurated into Scotland’s flagship music “hall of fame” seven years after his death. MORE INFO...

AYE: Martyn Bennett

After several years in the making a new compilation of Martyn's music has finally been released in March 2012 featuring some of Martyn's best loved tunes plus previously unreleased tracks. MORE INFO...

BBC Scotland Global Gathering

Mary Ann Kennedy celebrates the work of groundbreaking musician and composer Martyn Bennett with special guests Kirsten Bennett, Barry Reid and Fraser Fifield. MORE INFO...

Grit: The story behind the cover

How did the cover come about? BJ Stewart, Martyn Bennett's official photographer, talks about the photoshoot, location and the inspiration behind the iconic image of Martyn. MORE INFO...

Martyn Bennett Image Gallery

Click to view the image gallery showing photos of Martyn in concert and publicity shots. There are also several collections of artwork for albums and promotions. MORE INFO...

Sign Martyn's Guestbook

Drop your personal thoughts and best wishes on Martyn's Guestbook. Everyone at The Martyn Bennett Trust are always glad to hear what you have to say. MORE INFO...

Techno's Lone Piper

Click here to view a comprehensive list of Martyn Bennett's main achievements. Studio recordings, Concerts and travels abroad are all covered. MORE INFO...

Martyn Bennett: 1971-2005

TOP STORY: Sheila Stewart - A National Treasure (1937 - 2014)
Born on July 7, 1937 in a stable that belonged to an hotel in Blairgowrie, Sheila grew up in a family of travelling...

ABOUT THE TRUST

The MBT aims to reflect Martyn's vision of music through supporting performances, commissions, new recordings and educational projects. In setting up the MBT, we thought about Martyn's characteristics as a musician and as a person, and how we could reflect these in the projects we run and the events we hold. Among these characteristics are freedom, innovation and creativity, boldness, honesty, grit, breaking through boundaries, brilliant musicianship and a deep connection to... MORE INFO

TESTIMONIALS

"We are all very upset to learn of Martyn's death. It has been such a delight for us to work with him over the last 4 years. He was mixing traditional Scottish music with contemporary grooves and arrangements in a very unique and soulful way. He will be badly missed as a creator, player and inspiring man."

Peter Gabriel

"Martyn never planned to get up anyone's nose. He was full of integrity, as a person and as an artist, and he had enormous regard for traditional music – he respected traditional musicians far above anything he ever did himself. He was never radical just for the sake of it – it was always in pursuit of what he wanted to do artistically."

Fred Morrison

"The musical world that Celtic Connections inhabits is much diminished with the loss of the musical genius and beautiful soul that was Martyn. Martyn was the boy who did it first, who did it best - and whose most recent work in 'Grit' showed that he still towered above the rest in terms of imagination, understanding, humour, respect and daring in his music."

Mary Ann Kennedy

"When I first heard his stuff, I just couldn't believe anyone could be that audacious. I still had the idea back then that there was such a thing as going too far with traditional music – and Martyn was certainly doing that. I almost liked his music in spite of myself."

Donald Shaw

"The sheer, breathtaking brilliance of Martyn Bennett was the shot in the arm that Scottish music needed to send it rocketing, supercharged, into the 21st century."

John Byrne

"You have achieved what I hoped you were going to achieve, which was to bring the old to the new, and you have bloody done it."

Sheila Stewart

"If he were still here, on the one hand Martyn might well have laughed at such lofty language; on the other he'd have seen it as no more than his due. He relished puncturing pretension just as he espoused the grandest artistic ideals; was as capable of deep humility as he was of audacious ambition."